Some dear old lady will say, "How beautiful"; and some old fellow with many a cheery party to his credit, not always nice, will say as he sits back, "Very true, but how hopelessly impracticable."
And so this thing that I am daring to talk about is the life-buoy thrown out to us, and it seems so ridiculous, even to write about it. Just imagine a statesman searching for an antidote for war and after careful consideration deciding to apply the antidote I have suggested. In three days he would be placed in a lunatic asylum. And yet it could be done. Perhaps it could be applied in America.
"There are many things in the commonwealth of Nowhere which I rather wish, then hope, to see adopted in our own," wrote Thomas More after finishing Utopia. Yet America has approached very close to Utopia, according to reports. America will learn a great lesson from our struggles and suffering. War is a rotten sort of occupation. Just imagine all the men who have been killed in this war marching down Piccadilly. Even if they marched in close formation it would take an awfully long time. Yet the whole thing is Love's inferno, but of course we are not going to change, but rather we will continue to build huge battleships, equip huge armies, fight, die, live unnaturally and take our just deserts, and we will get them.
Philadelphia, January, 1918.
I am now definitely employed by Uncle Sam to go about the country giving talks about the war. He must have been pleased with the result of our first effort in Pennsylvania. At any rate it has become my job to go from county capital to county capital, in every state, giving addresses in the Court Houses.
We started off on Wednesday the 15th at 9.15 A.M. in the Lehigh Valley Railroad's charming train called the "Black Diamond." Our party consisted of my senator, an ex-congressman of Irish extraction, a British Tommy camouflaged as a sergeant, and myself. The British Tommy's job was to bag any Britishers who desired to enlist. Strangely enough everybody wanted him to talk, but he was told not to do any talking. I should have had no objection to his obliging our American friends if he had had anything to say, but he had never been to the front, much to his own disappointment, and I disliked the responsibility.
We arrived at a little city called Towanda sometime after lunch and dined in state with the members of the local committee. They all seemed to be judges, so far as I can remember. This may have been owing to the beauty of architecture displayed in the local Court House. We spoke to a fairly large audience. The proceedings were opened by a young lady who advanced with tightly clenched lips, and an air of determination, to a large black and handsomely decorated piano. She struck a chord or two and then a choir of maidens, assisted by some young men, commenced to sing some patriotic airs. They sang very well and then my senator, having been fittingly introduced by one of the leading citizens, addressed the people. I came next, and enjoyed myself thoroughly, for none of my jokes missed fire. Then the congressman spoke and none of his jokes missed fire. At the end of this meeting a suspicion commenced to possess my mind. I began to wonder whether it were not true that the folks living in the country towns were more awake to the situation than their brethren in the cities.
I loved the congressman's effort. The lovely part about his remarks lay in the fact that all the time he felt that he ought to be careful not to introduce too much about Ireland's wrongs.
After the meeting we retired to the hotel and in the night a party of young people returned from a sleighing expedition and commenced to whisper in the room next to mine, which was a sitting-room. They succeeded in waking us up but, by merely whispering, refused to satisfy any curiosity that we possessed. It is a curious thing that ill-bred curiosity seems the predominant quality in a man when he is awakened at night and cannot go to sleep.
The next day we arrived at Tunkhannock, a charming little town, and we addressed a meeting in the Court House. It was freezing, and the ground was covered with snow, but that did not prevent the place of meeting from being crammed with eager, earnest people. I suggested to the congressman that we should talk from the bench, as it gave one more control over the people who were crowded close up to where we were sitting. He looked at me with a twinkle in his Irish eyes and said, "Yes, quite so—the old British spirit coming out again. If you get up there on the bench, in ten seconds you'll have me in the dock." Of course, amidst laughter, he confided the whole thing to the audience. The people were fine, as keen as mustard. They were all possessed with a firm desire to get along with the job.